Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Community Attitudes Survey was first carried out in 1992 following a review of crime survey needs in Northern Ireland. In accordance with the recommendations of the review, the Central Survey Unit (CSU) of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) was commissioned to conduct a continuous survey of community attitudes towards law and order named the Community Attitudes Survey. The survey measures a broad range of attitudes towards crime, policing and the courts. The main purpose of the survey is to collect people’s opinions about safety in their area, home security measures, crime levels, the police and the courts. Over the years a number of questions have either been dropped from or added to the survey, with the most noticeable change occurring in the third year (1994-1995, SN:4792) when the security questions were dropped. A complete breakdown of the questions and the years in which they were asked is included in the documentation. Another major change occurred in the fifth year (1996-1997, SN:4794) when the annual allocation size was reduced from 3360 to 2400. More information about the survey and related publications can be found on the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) Community Attitudes Survey web page.
Main Topics:The main topics covered by the Community Attitudes Survey are: Perceived level of crime Personal fear of crime Personal precautions against crime Reporting crime Contact with the police Perceptions of the police Responsibility for police complaints Composition of the police force Attitudes to sectarian crime Attitudes to security policing Politeness, fairness and effectiveness of security forces Security Policy Attitudes towards the courts Standard Measures The dataset contains (Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) and Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes, using SOC90 up until 2001 and SOC2000 in 2002. Social class (SC) is also coded from 95/96 onwards.
Multi-stage stratified random sample
the sample was drawn from a simple random sample from three strata. The first of these strata is the Belfast District Council area. The other two are formed by dividing the remainder of the province into East and West along district council boundaries. Within each of these strata, a simple random sample of addresses was drawn with size proportional to the distribution of domestic addresses on the rating list.
Face-to-face interview
CAPI
